Emmett J. Rice, American economist and banking official, died from heart failure he was , 91.

Emmett John Rice was a former governor of the Federal Reserve System, a Cornell University economics professor, expert in the monetary systems of developing countries and the father of the current Ambassador to the United Nations in the Cabinet of President Barack Obama, Susan E. Rice died from heart failure he was , 91.. His son, John Rice, received an M.B.A, from Harvard Business School, and is the founder of Management Leadership for Tomorrow (an organization committed to developing top minority talent for leadership roles in the business and non-profit sector).

(December 21, 1919 – March 10, 2011)

Background

Rice traced his roots to the American South. He was born in Florence, South Carolina and was the son of Sue Pearl (née Suber) and the Rev. Ulysses Simpson Rice.^[3] His father passed away when Rice was 7.^[4] He attended segregated schools before his family moved to New York City when he was 16.^[5] Rice studied at the City College of New York, receiving a B.B.A. in 1941 and an M.B.A. in 1942 from City College of New York. He then joined the U. S. Army Air Force in World War II, serving with the Tuskegee Airmen. After the war, he earned a Ph.D. in Economics from the University of California at Berkeley and was a Fulbright scholar in India. Rice integrated the Berkeley Fire Department as a student by becoming its first African American fireman. He next taught economics at Cornell as the university's only black assistant professor. He then served as a governor of the Federal Reserve from 1979 to 1986.^[6]

Career

In 1950 and 1951, Rice was a research assistant in economics at Berkeley, and in 1952 he was a research associate at the Reserve Bank of India as a Fulbright Fellow. In 1953 and 1954, he was a teaching assistant at Berkeley.^[7]
From 1954 to 1960, Rice was an assistant professor of economics at Cornell University. From 1960 to 1962, he took leave from Cornell to work as an economist at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. From 1962 to 1964, he was an adviser to the Central Bank of Nigeria in Lagos.^[7]
From 1964 to 1966, Rice was Deputy Director, then Acting Director, of the Treasury Department's Office of Developing Nations. From 1966 to 1970, he was U.S. Alternate Executive Director for the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (World Bank), the International Development Association, and the International Finance Corporation.^[7]
From 1970 to 1971, Rice was executive director of the Mayor's Economic Development Committee for Washington, D.C., on leave from the Treasury Department. From 1972 he was senior vice president of the National Bank of Washington.^[7]
Rice was appointed to the Federal Reserve Board in 1979 by President Jimmy Carter. He was the second black member, after Andrew Brimmer, who was appointed in 1966. Rice served on the Board for seven years under Chairman Paul A. Volcker^[8]
After leaving the Federal Reserve in 1986, Rice served on corporate boards and consulted.

Death

Rice died at of congestive heart failure on March 10, 2011 at his home in Camas, Washington.^[9] He was 91.

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